In the Cover Home of the Houses issue, they have used heavy chain for directing the water on the downspouts. I’m interested in details. A few weeks ago a customer told me that she had seen this done and liked it, but that’s all she knew. I would like to get back to her with some info. Anything would be helpful.
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http://www.oldworlddistributors.com/downspoutsindex.html#custom
http://www.oldworlddistributors.com/index.html#top
These people sell some. Joe H
Of course, there is always this site ;-) (pretty convenient this WWW thing, sure hope it's not a fad)
http://www.rainingchains.com/
The ornament ones are pretty. I've seen the welded heavy link variety. It would be very easy for a welding shop to make up. You can bend it into shape too. But they are very ugly.Helen
They're pretty cute alright, but they don't contain the flow like a downspout does. In a heavy rain you're bound to get some splash. Depending on the size of your roof overhang, some of this might get on your sidewall, which is not a good thing.
I had a customer who admired the look of these oriental ball/chain drain things so one of his friends bought him some for Christmas. I was doing other work on the house so he had me install them. When I went by a while later to finish something it happened to be raining and while I waited for him to let me in the door, I had a chance to watch them in action. When he greeted me I asked him whether he had ever witnessed the efficiency of his chain drains. Of course he hadn't so I pointed out to him that his spout used to cause a splash up to about eighteen inches off the ground on the wood siding but now with the chain drain it was splashing off each and every ball to wet all the siding equally. Now he's left with the problem of removing them and making an 'insult' to his friend by not using them anymore.
But then I don't suppose it'll freeze full of ice and bust a joint in the winter either...Excellence is its own reward!
We did rain chains on my parents' house 30+ years ago. We just used ordinary steel swag lamp chain, cheaper than dirt. It's still there, still works. You need enough overhang that the splash doesn't reach the wall. We hung them using #12 electric wire, insulation left on. The idea is that if some bozo decides to pull on the chain, it just falls without doing any real damage, and you put it back up again.
-- J.S.